‘Air Strikes On Angkor Wat’

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32361, 29 July 1970, Page 17

‘Air Strikes On Angkor Wat’

<N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

PHNOM PENH, July 28. Air strikes were firing regularly inside the Angkor Wat temple complex and were causing civilian casualties there, well-informed Western sources said.

Strikes have been mainly concentrating on roads and trails through the temple area, shooting at any movement they see, the sources said. They said that the heaviest concentration had been along the road leading from the French conservatory' to the main temple, with an undetermined number of civilians killed and wounded. Air strikes were also called in at one recent action at the temples of Trapeng Nokor, 15 miles north-west of Angkor, the sources said. Twin engine OVIO Bronco spotter planes flown by American pilots with an observer aboard were over the temple area every day but as far as was known had not fired into the complex, the sources said.

States F 4 Phantom jets had been making frequent lowlevel flights over the area to take reconnaissance photographs. One reason for civilian casualties in the area had been the large numbers of peasants who have moved into the temples to seek safety, the sources said. They said that a small group of Communist soldiers in the area hid among stone monuments while the strikes hit a group of civilians, killing or wounding as many as 40 of them. After Communist occupation of the temple area, the Cambodian Government declared it an “open city” and said that there would be no military operations for fear of damaging the temples.

They said that United